


loyal & true

by allthebros



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Medieval, Confessions, Knights - Freeform, Loyalty, M/M, Pining, Self-Denial
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-12
Updated: 2017-06-12
Packaged: 2018-11-13 01:41:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,243
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11174373
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/allthebros/pseuds/allthebros
Summary: The light has faded and it’s almost completely dark in the armoury. An apprentice will be along to light the torches shortly, but for now—for now—Jon can imagine.“I have a duty,” he says, can almost feel his lips brushing Patrick’s skin. A word has never been so bitter in his mouth.





	loyal & true

**Author's Note:**

> written for the [Blackhawks Summer Fic Fest 2017](http://coffeekristin.tumblr.com/post/161101119308/blackhawks-summer-fic-fest-2017). Prompt: forehead kiss. 
> 
> <333 to sorrylatenew for the brainstorming/support & kaneoodle for the beta!

 

 

 

 

Two days of riding, three flasks full of water—even a cup of wine—and he can still taste blood in his mouth.

“Shit.”

The small armoury is dark and quiet, reeks of sweat and leather and wet metal, and no one’s here to hear the way Jon’s voice cracks. He sits heavily on the bench at the back, discarded pieces of armour at his feet. His chainmail is heavier than usual on his shoulders, but he can’t bring himself to take it off, clumsy fingers picking at the ties of his vambrace instead, until he stops not even halfway done undressing but entirely done with it all the same. 

He lets his head hang, feels the stretch in his neck, and when he runs a hand over his hair, flecks of pale dry mud fall over his boots and the floor.

He fucked up. Got his orders, gathered his men, led them, and he failed. He failed them, the kingdom, his King. He fucked up. 

It keeps playing over and over in his head. Leaves a taste of bile in his throat and a sinking feeling inside that’s been building over the past few days, bent on emptying him out and leaving him hollow.

“Where’s your squire?” Patrick’s voice comes from the door.

Jon exhales slowly, gut clenching. He wants to tell Patrick to leave him alone. He wants him to stay. He is the first and last person Jon wants to see at the same time and he hates himself for not being able to make up his mind. Knows what he would choose and what he should choose and how they’re not the same even though he wishes they were. 

“Sent him away,” he replies, resuming his attempt at getting out of his damn armour.

Patrick tuts and comes in, closing the door behind him. Fading light slants in through the high windows and casts warm shadows over the room.

Jon doesn’t raise his head when Patrick gets close—dirty boots coming into view in front of him—but he doesn’t protest either when Patrick grabs his arm and starts unbuckling Jon’s vambrace for him.

He’s already out of his armour but must have come over right after, still in his dirty breeches and sweat-soaked tunic, dry mud and blood on his forearms.

Patrick’s hands are big and strong with wide knuckles. This isn’t the first time Jon has watched them work. Fast and agile fingers, good at whatever Patrick sets out to do with them, whether it’s holding a sword, polishing his armour, or darning his socks. Jon has thought of these hands a lot in the privacy of his own mind, his own quarters.

It’s difficult, right at that moment, not to stare. So he does, too tired to resist and too raw inside to pretend like it isn’t something he wants to do. He watches as Patrick makes quick work of the left vambrace, raising his arm so he can take care of the right one

Patrick places them both carefully on the bench, running his thumb over a deep gouge in the metal. One of his knuckles is bleeding again and Jon thinks about grabbing his hand between his, thinks about sucking on the wound until it stops. A taste of blood Jon wouldn’t mind for once, that wouldn’t leave him retching behind a tree until his ribs hurt. 

The small pressure of Patrick’s fingertips on his neck startles him.

“Stand up,” he says, voice low and soft, barely above a whisper.

Jon does without a word, tries to settle into the hush of Patrick’s voice, of his touch. Tries to let that be enough. The chainmail seems hellbent on dragging him to the floor with its weight, and the wound he sustained on his side screams in protest, but Jon ignores it all, eyes resting on Patrick’s hairline instead where grime still clings to it.

Breathing is only marginally easier once Patrick has dragged the chainmail over his head with a grunt that shakes Jon in his core, makes him think of things he wants but doesn’t have. The mail falls on the stone floor with a loud, clanky noise that echoes through the room.

Patrick stands close. So close Jon can see his eyelashes clearly even in the dim light. 

Jon swallows thickly, says, “I fucked up, Patrick,” and feels the words stick to his throat, wet and painful, a little desperate, even if he doesn’t want it to be.

“Turn around,” Patrick whispers with a hand on Jon’s side, tugging lightly to get him to move. Jon follows, too tired and mad to protest.

He wants out of these filthy clothes. Wants a hot bath to wash away the dirt and blood, to soak his bruised ribs. Wants to rub the battle away, the failure off his skin, even if he knows it doesn’t work that way. No amount or scrubbing will bring Nate, Lars, and Sylvia back. No magic will be able to erase any of it. And he’s ashamed. Ashamed at his own ego, his own self-deprecation and loathing when friends have lost their lives. Friends that trusted him.

He is the youngest captain the Guard has ever had and he wanted to prove himself worthy: of the position, of the King’s trust, of his Knights’ loyalty. Still wants to prove himself worthy even as he feels anything but right now.

Patrick’s fingers work quickly over the ties of his gambeson, glancing over the skin of his neck.

“It wasn’t your fault,” Patrick says, pressing his hands over Jon’s shoulders to get him to turn again.

“It’s my responsibility.”

Patrick huffs and shakes his head, utterly exasperated with Jon. But it doesn’t hold any of the fondness it usually does, only looks sad and tired. Patrick is still so very close, though, it would be easy for Jon to take him into his arms, to say how sorry he is and to let Patrick convince him of what he says. Let him push until Jon believes him. 

Before he can think of it, he’s raised a hand to Patrick’s neck where he thumbs at a cut there, feeling the edge of the scab. Patrick breathes deep—a long exhale the makes Jon’s stomach twist with heat.

“Let me get you out of this,” Patrick says, knocking lightly on Jon’s chest. Something about the way his voice wavers flares up inside Jon, and he drops his hand, afraid of what he might do if he keeps touching. 

If he closes his eyes, he can imagine it being different. Patrick isn’t helping him out of his gambeson, but taking Jon’s tunic off, dragging it slowly over his head and then splaying his hands wide over Jon’s sides. If he closes his eyes, he can imagine leaning forward and catching Patrick’s lips with his own, so very very close, parted and waiting for him.

And he is—near and warm, looking up at Jon when he opens his eyes, gambeson discarded.

Jon leans in. For a wild moment he sees himself doing it, thinks of how sweet it would be when Patrick lets him. Instead, he presses their foreheads together. Breathes in. Breathes out. Stays like this and wills it to be enough. 

The light has faded and it’s almost completely dark in the armoury. An apprentice will be along to light the torches shortly, but for now—for now—Jon can imagine.

“I have a duty,” he says, can almost feel his lips brushing Patrick’s skin. A word has never been so bitter in his mouth. 

“It’s _our_ duty, Jon. It’s not all on you.”

He closes his eyes, holds Patrick’s head between his hands and strokes his temples with his thumbs. He should be mad. Should be furious at Patrick for making him feel this way. But he isn’t. Can’t even gather the kind of energy it would take to be annoyed at him for it.

He gives Patrick’s head a small shake, like that somehow could will him to understand—and he knows Patrick won’t, or will ignore, because he is stubborn and strong-willed. He allows himself this, though: a soft kiss to Patrick’s forehead. A steady press of his mouth that lasts longer than it should.

He pulls away, and takes a few steps to put some distance between them. 

The door opens, spilling in warm firelight from the torches in the hallway. The Apprentice startles to see them standing side by side in the dark. He catches himself quickly and bows, says, “Sirs,” and then, with a flick of his wrist, lights the armoury torches before closing the door quietly behind him.

Jon avoids looking at him, all his feelings twisting wrong inside now that light has quite literally been shed upon them. His tunic clings to him with sweat and filth, and he’s aware of how tired and bruised he is, how much he must look it as well.

“Let me see your bandages,” Patrick says, coming close again and lifting the edge of Jon’s tunic with careful fingers. Jon stops him with a hand on his wrist, and Patrick freezes, looks up at him with wide, blue eyes.

It would be so easy and he wants him so much.

“Patrick.” It sounds like a plea. It feels like one too.

Patrick sighs, lets go of him and steps back, enough Jon can breathe easier, think clearer.

Jon looks at the pieces of his armour on the floor, his dirty and bloody gambeson. He should pick them up. It would be unfair to let Andrew take care of them when Jon sent him away so rudely. He should take a bath. Should send a message to the King. Should see to the other Knights. He should—

“You know,” Patrick says, cutting the silence. When Jon looks up at him, he’s looking to the side, to the swords hung along the back wall. The warm, flickering light of the torches brings out the bruises on his jaw, the dark circles under his eyes. The sight tugs at Jon, a pull he has to cling to the nearest spear rack to resist.

“What?”

Patrick shakes his head, glancing at him. “One day you’ll wake up, years from now, and realize that it didn’t have to be this way.”

Jon goes rigid, something cold seizing in his chest. He wasn’t expecting this, though he’d feared it somehow. Selfish in his own certainty of it while pretending it couldn’t be different for Patrick. Unwilling to think of it that way, of how it would feel.

“Is this—“ He swallows. “Is this where you tell me that it’ll be too late?”

Surprise shows on Patrick’s face when he looks at him, brows coming together immediately. “No,” he says, taking a step toward him, almost reaching out—a little aborted movement of his hand that hurts Jon almost more than the words he said. He’s almost incredulous. And hurt, too, easy to see in the way he searches Jon’s face, as he says, “this is where I tell you that I’ll still be here. I’ll always be right here,” with a certainty to his voice that makes it sound more like a vow than a mere promise. 

It’s a good thing he still has hand on the rack, relief hitting him hard and cutting him at the knees. He’s never heard Patrick say it before, not even like this, with the meaning unspoken, except for how Jon hears it. Understands it. Feels the terrifying immensity of it.

“I don’t deserve this.” It’s out of him before he can stop it, showing too much.

Patrick’s smile is small, but there’s that hint of fondness Jon was missing earlier in the quirk of it. “You do. But either way, it’s not for you to decide.”

“Patrick, I—“

He’s interrupted by the door opening again. A young page comes in, her braided hair and red livery indicating she’s a royal messenger.

“Sir Jonathan,” she says, hands behind her back and eyes on the far wall. “The King will see you as soon as possible.”

Right. His failure.

“Tell the King I’ll be there shortly.”

The page nods and leaves.

“Fuck,” he says in the silence that follows her exit. He rubs at his face with his hands. It’s too much all at once. Too much to take in. He feels like he’ll fly apart at any moment, too full and too tired to keep himself together.

“It’ll be fine,” Patrick says coming up behind him. “The King will understand. He trusts you. And it wasn’t your fault.”

“It doesn’t matter if it was or wasn’t,” Jon snaps, turning, words louder than he expected. “I have to take responsibility.”

Patrick hums, like he understands. Completely ignores Jon’s outburst and pushes forward like he always does, single-minded and annoying. 

“I’m with you no matter what, remember that,” he says.

Jon gives a small humourless laugh, feels sick and overwhelmed, says, mouth twisting, “careful, Sir Patrick. Someone might hear you and think treason.”

“No.” Patrick reaches out for Jon’s fingers and squeezes them between his. “That’s not what this is at all.”

Jon looks down at their hands. Maybe he can have this. Maybe he can let himself have this, work on finding a way there—easier now that he knows for certain Patrick will be there when he does. 

He closes his eyes and squeezes Patrick’s fingers in return.

 

 


End file.
